THE CANDY HAWKERS' SWEET INCENTIVE (2024)

"Old Ed," as he sometimes refers to himself, isn't the only ambitious kid in the van full of street peddlers that bumps along Pennsylvania Avenue SE on its way to the Metro Center subway stop. There is Dwayne Little, who wants to be a lawyer because "When I'm sick at home I watch 'The People's Court,' and I like it." And Nakita "Ke-Ke" Peete, lover of dogs and seeker of fame, who is torn between the theater and veterinary medicine.

Every day these children or others like them hit the streets in Northwest Washington, on Capitol Hill and in the surrounding suburbs to sell boxes of chocolates and other confections. They make a $1 commission on every box they sell and say they can earn between $30 and $40 a week.

That money alters their relationship with the rest of the world, allowing them to offer financial help to their parents, do their own shopping and wear the same trendy sneakers and sweaters as their more affluent classmates.

But their presence on the street presents potential customers, local governments and advocates for the disadvantaged with two troubling questions. Is this a suitable way for poor children to earn money? And if not, what are the alternatives for addressing their need?

"These are kids who feel compelled to dress up their poverty," says Suzi Goldman of Voices From the Street, a theater troupe for the homeless. "The alternative can be dope selling or prostitution. In the true and beautiful world children would not have to solicit. But these kids will never live in the true and beautiful world."

"There aren't enough resources out there for kids to get a little money in a positive way," said Broderick Johnson, general counsel for the Washington chapter of Concerned Black Men, a group that runs a tutoring and mentoring program for inner city children. "I think we need a substitute for this."

Ed, Dwayne and Ke-Ke belong to Teen Advancement, a Bladensburg-based group run by Terry Kaiser. The rest of their crew is made up of Aaron Thompson, Ed's twin, a top seller with red sneakers who wants to be a policeman; Damond Little, Dwayne's twin, an aficionado of pocket-sized video games who also wants to be a policeman; and Santea Hendrix, the senior member of the group at 15.

Santea's career choice is the only one so challenging that the others have difficulty pronouncing it. He wants to be an entrepreneur and names Kaiser as his mentor.

The teens don't concern themselves with the debate over whether their program is good for them. They speak of it as though it were adventure. That may be because of the biweekly trips for pizza and fried chicken or the occasional detours to video arcades.

"We are out doing activities," Aaron Thompson says. "Otherwise we'd just be hanging around."

Or it may be the opportunity for top sellers to accompany Kaiser and his family to Disney World. Santea and three others went along last year, and they are still talking about the water slide.

"My friend PeeWee went down so fast he drowned," Santea says.

"You all know what drowned is?" Ed Thompson asks with a certain intellectual contempt. "Drowned? Dead?"

"Almost drowned," Santea says.

But for teens, the most basic, and most powerful attraction of the candy program is that it puts money in their pockets. They speak frequently about the money they give to their parents. Santea brags about the microwave he won for his grandmother in a recent sales competition. Everyone is eager to describe the presents they bought for family members at Christmas and on birthdays.

It is also clear from the children's clothes and recurring conversations about what they bought during weekend excursions to suburban malls that the program has allowed them to become status-conscious consumers.

Pauline Harris, the mother of Ed and Aaron Thompson, says there have been occasions when her boys made $20 and came home with $2 and that she and other parents told Teen Advancement crew leader Paul Young that they were "not pleased with how {the boys} spent their money." But she is quick to add that the boys also come home with "school clothes, school supplies, things they need," and that she considers Young and the program extremely beneficial to her sons.

"I'm handicapped and I can't take my kids places," she says. "Paul is like the father my kids never had."

The program gets good reviews from other families too. "We made it a point to get ourselves introduced to {Terry Kaiser} and we were very well pleased," says Birdie DeShields, the grandmother of Santea Hendrix. "He never mistreated them or tried to beat them out of anything. And it has taught Santea responsibility and to do things on time and how to manage his money."

Johnson says the bottom line of the program is that "The kids are exploited. They are out really late, crossing dangerous streets. A lot of them are obviously not doing their homework. They aren't at home in a semi-safe atmosphere."

Kaiser stresses the benefits of his program as an alternative to street life. "We talk in the van, probably four or five times a week about drugs and what they do to you," he says. "You should hear the stories they tell. It's not what happened to them, it's what they've seen happen."

Ed Thompson says it would take him "all week" to describe his experiences with friends who were involved with drugs. They began a few years ago when a friend produced a white nugget in a plastic bag and told him it was a $50 rock of crack cocaine.

"I said, 'People actually pay $50 for that,' " Ed recalls. "He said, 'Let's go around back and smoke it.' "

But Ed refused. "I got a lot of things to think about for my future. I'm not going to say I turn my back on people who do it {use drugs}. I'm not like some people. But I got a lot to think about. A lot of paths to build."

His friend used to steal money too, Ed says. "I heard they picked him up in a puddle of blood and everything."

He tells the story in an "it's-sad-but-that's-the-way-it-goes" sort of voice he reserves for adults who are asking about Serious Subjects. Left to themselves, the kids' conversation is more lighthearted. They talk about things like the Homeless Rights March last year when Ke-Ke met actor David Faustino, who plays Bud on "Married ... With Children."

"At the end I signed a dollar bill to him and he signed a five-dollar bill to me," she says. "I told him I would never spend it and my mother spent it.

"But he did give me a real kiss."

"Sure he did," Ed says.

Ke-Ke loved meeting Faustino because she wants to be an actress too. So far her career consists of an appearance in a local children's play called "Rags to Riches."

It was about orphanage girls who became rich," she says. "If I was an actress I would give my mother $1,000 a week," she says.

But that doesn't seem immediately likely, so she climbs out of Terry Kaiser's van and walks to the mouth of the Metro where she and Ed set down their boxes and begin to work the fast-moving crowd.